The Competitive Advantage of Disability Confident Leadership

Your expert

Lesa Bradshaw

Lesa is a strategic advisor to multi-national, national and local employers, public and private institutions, and an internationally acclaimed Disability Confidence Champion with 28 years of leadership experience across developed and developing economies. She combines professional expertise with lived experience of disability to help businesses unlock talent, improve performance, and build accessible, disability-confident cultures that drive meaningful change.

All sessions by Lesa →

Session Summary

What ‘disables’ you? An odd question on the face of it, but a pertinent one when we consider that we bring with us to business a diverse range of abilities, potentials and lived experiences which, context depending, may be fully unleashed, or restricted.

The role of leadership is to create a culture, environment and context which enables everyone to unleash their talents. This, in a nutshell, describes a disability confident organization. In this session, Lesa Bradshaw draws from her lived experience as a business leader with a disability to deliver an impactful ‘re-think’ of the value that the diversity of disability brings to our economy.

Designed to create a deeper understanding of the competitive advantage of a disability-confident, organisational culture, this session is guaranteed to resonate with leaders as well as the broader business audience.

Interaction

During the expert session, Lesa Bradshaw engages the audience through a mix of interactive exercises and Q&A using the Mentimeter app.

Key Learnings

Enhance your inclusive leadership skills
Learn how to leverage the benefit to achieve higher productivity and competitiveness
Reposition your vision towards unlocking an innovative and enabled business culture

Detailed session description

What ‘disables’ you? This seemingly odd question becomes pertinent when we consider that we bring to business a diverse range of abilities, potentials, and lived experiences. Depending on the context, these attributes may be fully unleashed or significantly restricted.

The role of leadership is to create a culture, environment, and context that enables everyone to unlock and maximize their talents. This, in essence, defines a disability-confident organization.

In this session, Lesa Bradshaw draws from her extensive experience as a business leader with a disability to deliver a powerful 're-think' on the value that diversity, specifically the diversity of disability, brings to our economy. Lesa’s personal journey and professional insights offer a unique perspective on how embracing disability can lead to innovative problem-solving, increased empathy, and stronger organizational resilience.

Her narrative underscores the importance of viewing disabilities not as limitations but as valuable contributions that can drive business success and societal progress.

Designed to foster a deeper understanding of the competitive advantage inherent in a disability-confident organizational culture, this session is guaranteed to resonate with leaders and the broader business audience. Lesa will provide actionable strategies and real-world examples of how businesses can cultivate an inclusive environment that not only accommodates but celebrates diversity.

By the end of this session, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and inspiration to transform their organizations into truly inclusive spaces where every individual’s potential is recognized and harnessed.

Before you book

Questions about The Competitive Advantage of Disability Confident Leadership

Is this for beginners or for people who already know the subject?

No prior knowledge is assumed. It is built for a general working audience, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction. What the hour itself covers: What ‘disables’ you? An odd question on the face of it, but a pertinent one when we consider that we bring with us to business a diverse range of abilities, potentials and lived experiences which, context depending, may be fully unleashed, or restricted.

Is Lesa the right expert for this?

Lesa Bradshaw is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 4.6 out of 5, across 66 responses, and rate Lesa personally 4.7 out of 5.

Is this session interactive, or do people just watch?

It is interactive, and the block higher up on this page says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.

How long does it take, and what do we have to prepare?

It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Lesa, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.

Who can join, and where does it run?

A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.

Can our global colleagues follow it?

The session is delivered in English. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.

Will our IT department have a problem with this?

No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.

How does this work under GDPR?

We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.

What do we get afterwards?

This one is live only. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.